Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis,
vol. II, 2, 2010, p. 81 – 95
THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF FLORENTIN: A WINDOW TO THE
GLOBALIZATION OF TEL AVIV
Caroline ROZENHOLC
University of Poitiers - MIGRINTER, University of Clermont-Ferrand, France
Abstract: Aside from open conflicts within Israel-Palestine, the neighborhood of Florentin
is a key-space where to observe and decipher how globalization impacts on the daily-life
scale and banal forms of identification and territorial appropriation. Situated south of the Tel
Aviv Jaffa agglomeration, and standing in between the two historical entities, the
neighborhood of Florentin also offers a fertile analytic ground for a better understanding
and different narrative of Tel Aviv itself as well as the contemporary Israeli society in some
of its complexity and diversity. Here, graffiti and other traces left in the streets and on the
walls of Florentin by successive waves of population constitute the thread to follow for
deep-reading the place.
Key Words: globalization, diversity, sense of place, identification, territorial appropriation,
Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Florentin neighborhood, graffiti
Introduction: Israel, Tel Aviv, the neighborhood of Florentin and globalization
Thinking about diversity and globalization, Israel-Palestine does not often come to mind first.
Neither does the “singularity” of Israel ease the generalization from case studies conducted in
the region on global-local topics. On the contrary, working in Israel, the social scientist’s
attention is most likely to be attracted by the geopolitical intensity of ongoing conflicts and
dramatic events. The new forms of territorial appropriations and identity claims are thus rarely
seek in the banal1) aspects of globalization and more, the societal evolutions of Israel are
seldom investigated through the triviality of daily-urban-life. Thus, wishing to contribute to the
debates on globalization and diversity from Israel and as an attempt to shift forward the
practice of social sciences in and on Israel, this article will present a reflection on the city of Tel
Aviv from a geographical point of view. But if Tel Aviv is more and more publicized as the
coalescence of an open-to-world and tolerant Israel – the total “flipside of Jerusalem”2) – the
attempt of this article is to go in the depth of the city and to see what is underneath the festive
and postmodern reputation of Tel Aviv.
Therefore, the focus is not on the prosperous Tel Aviv – neither on the business quarters nor
on the Bauhaus Unesco Worldwide Heritage site – but on one of Tel Aviv historical southern
neighborhoods: the neighborhood of Florentin. Florentin emerged only recently from marginality
to be “put back” on the map of Tel Aviv and yet, with about 6 000 inhabitants and after decades
of decay, this small neighborhood is today strongly identified with the cosmopolitan youth and
1) This is specifically true for non-Israeli social scientists working on Israel-Palestine but it can also
be traced within the Israeli academia. Of course, there are major exceptions to that general trend (see
bibliography).
2) According to a recent article published online in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper (1st of November
2010), “Lonely Planet this week named Tel Aviv third in a list of the world's best cities, praising the coastal
metropolis for its art and music scenes and relaxed, liberal culture”, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/
tel-aviv-is-in-top-three-cities-in-the-world-says-lonely-planet-1.322274.
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Caroline ROZENHOLC
global atmosphere of Tel Aviv. Its “dark” reputation accumulated through years of poverty and
lack of municipal concern is nowadays dissolving into a sense of “authenticity”. Interestingly, in
the last years, for people settling in Florentin, this sense of “authenticity” mixes with a desire for
“exoticism” sustained as much by the presence of Asian and African migrant workers,
Palestinian and working class families as by a whole range of small bakeries, groceries and
spices boutiques, smiths and tapestries workshops, and restaurants serving from “homecooking” to Indian talhis and Japanese sushi.
Looking at the global through the local
The streets of Florentin thus offer a unique and particularly rich accumulation of layers of
activities and presences. By this accumulation itself, and through the complexity it produces,
the streets present to the patient observer (as well as the punctual visitors) some elements
testifying of the new “arrangements” of the contemporary Israeli society regarding identity,
identification and territorial urban appropriation. In addition, a detailed reading of the
neighborhood of Florentin – through in-depth interviews on the “life in the neighborhood” and
archive work in the Municipality of Tel Aviv Jaffa crossed with street observation and
photography – also reveals a different narrative of Tel Aviv than the one largely admitted of an
apolitical and somehow de-territorialized city. Looking at Tel Aviv through the history of
Florentin and the southern neighborhoods indeed helps rooting, surprisingly, a city often
labeled as “the Bubble” in its geopolitical surroundings and settings. It shows a whole range of
different faces and a larger panel of intermediate colors between the Black and the White cities.
The neighborhood of Florentin thus functions theoretically both as a prismatic window through
which to observe the globalization of the city and as a microcosm from where to analyze the
ongoing social evolutions of the country. Therefore, by diving in this pulsating economical and
cultural core of Israel, we want to show how and why one of its rather marginal neighborhoods
emerged recently as a centrality from where to decipher what is, on the one hand, the “place”
and sense of place today and, on the other hand, to understand how territorial identification
works in Israel today.
By doing so, the challenge of looking at the global through place-based research, leads to knit
a whole web of local and global scales and to reposition the local in its frame, being it the city,
the country or the region. Trying to understand the specificities of the very place of Florentin
and then generalizing from this case-study in Israel, I suggest that from a methodological point
of view and as much as for the practice of Geography, this research on the neighborhood of
Florentin can serve as a paradigmatic example to understand place-making in other contexts.
Indeed, if we stick with the basic geographical preoccupation of how space and society
intertwine, I argue that the effort of navigating among scales (of time and space) and strata of
meanings has become, like it is for understanding the place of Florentin in Tel Aviv along the
history of city, a methodological necessity. It helps clearing up the “place” a place bears in the
3) These reasoning process and methodological choice are detailed in the PhD thesis in
Geography on which this article is based: “Florentin (2005-2009): a neighborhood of Tel Aviv in the
globalization or how to read a place to tell about the city”. The original title is in French: “Lire le lieu pour
dire la ville. Florentin: une mise en perspective de Tel Aviv dans la mondialisation (2005-2009). It is based
on a four years fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2008. The PhD itself was concluded and defended
in May 2010.
4) Since the 1920s, Tel Aviv has been nicknamed the bubble (Shavit 2004). More recently, this
nickname has become very popular through Eytan Fox’s movie “The Bubble”, “Ha’bouah” (2007) in
Hebrew.
5) The themes of the Black and the White cities are largely developed by the Israeli architect
Sharon Rotbard, especially in his book (2005) Ir levana, ir shrora, Tel Aviv, Babel (in Hebrew).
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The Neighborhood of Florentin: a Window to the Globalization of Tel Aviv
complex ensembles cities constitute today and it is a key to understand the constitution of the
urban and social fabrics; how it is created and sometimes unraveled.
Fig. 1- Tel Aviv in 2008 with the business quarter and its high-rises in the
background and the trees of Rotschild Boulevard on the right side of the picture
Tel Aviv: a restless urban landscape6)
The tensions in the Middle East are so prevalent and the categories of the conflict in IsraelPalestine so dominant that they concentrate a lot of the social research. Observers reflecting
on Israel have indeed embodied the habit of addressing topics and places through the most
dramatic situations, leaving aside the mundane, yet crucial, urban settings and their ongoing
transformations. As put by Saskia Sassen (2005) in her reflection on globalization, the master
categories of State and conflict have a “blinding power” of explanation 7). They thus leave in the
penumbra a very active part of the social reality. And this is why, precisely, digging in Tel Aviv,
and in its less known aspects, might be efficient and informative.
Tel Aviv metropolitan area is about 3 millions of inhabitants and, as such, it is the biggest
metropolis in Israel. Its inner ring composed of the agglomeration of Tel Aviv Jaffa (as
illustrated on figure 2) represents about one tenth of the metropolis population (390 000
inhabitants according to the municipal statistics of 2009 – Statistical Yearbook 2009) and it
concentrates most of the cultural and economical activity of the region. It surely is today, and
6) Lin and Wei (2002) quoted by Bonard and Felli (2008) use this expression of “restless urban
landscape” to qualify the evolutions of the Chinese urban landscape.
7) Saskia Sassen’s argument (2005: 402) about master categories and their explanatory power is
very efficient in the attempt of breaking through the methodological nationalism prevalent in researches on
Israel-Palestine: “From where I (Sassen 2006) look at it all, master categories have the power to illuminate,
but theirs is blinding power thereby also keeping us from seeing other presences in the landscape. They
produce, then, a vast penumbra around that centre of light. It is in that penumbra that we need to go
digging”.
83
Caroline ROZENHOLC
happened to be within only 100
years8), the cosmopolitan and
high-tech hub of the country.
About Tel Aviv we need to point
out how peculiar in the Israeli
landscape the city is and how
different from the rest of the
country the city feels. In this
sense, the nickname the city
bears – not many cities have
nicknames! – echoes the
distance Tel Aviv seems to
retain from its troubled context.
Tel Aviv is often perceived, both
in and outside the country, as a
place of leisure and quality of
life. A-political and somehow
unquestioned, the global Tel
Aviv stands, for example, and
apparently more than ever as
the complete opposite of
Jerusalem (Alfasi and Fenster,
2005; Ram, 2008). The city
almost seems disconnected
from its geography and the myth
of Tel Aviv rising from bared
dunes is still strong 9). To
complete the picture of what is
Tel Aviv today, we have to
Fig.2 - The neighborhood of Florentin, South of the Tel mention that the UNESCO
nominated the city in 2003 as a
Aviv – Jaffa agglomeration (source: Municipality of Tel
site of the World Wide Heritage.
Aviv Jaffa, http://gis.tel-aviv.gov.il/iview/).
And this nomination surely added
to the aura and prestige of the city, with a new emphasis on the city Bauhaus architecture and
European urban planning. This nomination also showed a rather new patrimonial awareness
for Tel Aviv. From 2003, many investments were brought to the center of the city but most of
them didn’t really pass the border between the center and the south of the city. As such, this
development contributed to reinforce existing borders and discrepancies among the city.
The city itself is divided today in three statistical areas, from North to South. The neighborhood
of Florentin is situated on the southern part of the city, just across the administrative boundary
between the center and the southern areas. Until 1948 this administrative border between
neighborhoods was the historical border between Tel Aviv and Jaffa. This single fact of having
a border in the city is, and has been, of great importance for the functioning of Jaffa and Tel
Aviv. This is especially true for neighborhoods like Florentin that stand in between two different,
8) Usually, the creation of Tel Aviv is dated from the creation, in 1909, of the Jewish neighborhood
Ahuzat Bait in the Municipality of Jaffa which changed its name to Tel Aviv in 1910.
9) In her article “Narrative-Myth and Urban Design”, the geographer Iris Aravot (1995: 82) writes
that “Tel Aviv was a very unusual phenomenon. Its growth from Ahuzat Bayit, the European neighborhood
of Jaffa, to the largest city in Israel arose from sheer necessity rather than from ideological preferences.
Thus Tel Aviv originally had no relation to a recommended model or to a general urban myth”.
84
The Neighborhood of Florentin: a Window to the Globalization of Tel Aviv Project
and to some extent opposed, entities. If the political significance and social impact of this limit
have been “forgotten” along the years, it never fully dissolved. Today it is what explains how
the city articulates (or disarticulates) Jaffa and Tel Aviv and the development of Tel Aviv and
“opposition” of Southern and Northern Tel Aviv. In the neighborhood of Florentin which interest
us here, this partition is still literally marked on the ground as Florentin is still governed by two
master plans, respectively the Yaffo B plan for Jaffa in its southern part and the Taba 48 for Tel
Aviv in its northern part.
Being partly built under the jurisdiction of Jaffa and partly under the jurisdiction of the, at the
time, new Tel Aviv, the neighborhood is literally situated in the frontier space between Tel Aviv
and Jaffa. To some extent, and until today, it stands between what still represents modernity
and tradition, between the “white” city of Ashkenazi middle class and the “black” South where
the Sephardic working class and Palestinian families live. But to understand why Florentin,
despite of being one of Tel Aviv historical neighborhoods, remained “out of the map” and
distant from the White and prosperous city for many years, we need to follow the traces and
signs the streets unveil and get to the history of the place. To understand why it was left aside
from the narrative of the Bauhaus and patrimony Tel Aviv until now we need to go back to the
beginning of the 20th century and to remember that Tel Aviv was at that time a political center
and its development: a national issue. And simply by placing those elements, we start to
understand Florentin as the junction where Jaffa and Tel Aviv meet but also as a place of
rupture within the metropolis between the old city of Jaffa and the White central city area of the
Bauhaus Tel Aviv10).This is what makes it so interesting, and this is where reside the challenge
of researching in places of interstices, as we need to circulate among geographical scales and
time to understand this very place and its changing meanings.
The choice of Florentin for studying globalization and diversity gets confirmed when we
understand that among between 5 000 to 7 000 inhabitants11) can be find the widest panel of
the Israeli population, from citizens to foreigners and all the people who stand in-between those
two categories. The Municipality itself participates to this reading of Florentin as it proposes
tourist tours of the neighborhood where to get some taste of the authenticity of the city and of
the melting-pot of the Israeli society12). Truth is that Florentin is now changing, and both the
population figures and the place itself show how much the neighborhood is reinvested today
with constructions and renovations. More people come to live in Florentin, younger ones, and
by doing so they too add new layers of meaning to this place. The interest of Florentin is that
because it stands on the other side of the border it has preserved a certain rhythm and all
strata of successive migration waves and presences in the neighborhood. Therefore, Florentin
became kind of « exotic » and « authentic » in the globalized and fast changing Tel Aviv and
Israeli society as it lives reachable elements that have disappeared elsewhere.
10) In 2003, Tel Aviv has been nominated as a worldwide heritage site by the UNESCO. This
nomination concerns what is now commonly called the White city and roughly designates the Bauhaus and
International Style building constructed in the limits of the Geddes plan of 1925.
11) The Municipality tends to estimate the population to 5 000 inhabitants while local organization
present much higher figures. The discrepancy lies in what the borders and the density are considered to
be.
12) The Municipality proposes two tours of Florentin and its surroundings and the following quotes
are withdrawn from the city hall website: “Taste and Color in South Tel Aviv : A tasting tour passing through
the streets of South Tel Aviv, through the lanes and food stands of the Lewinsky Market. A tour between
the sacks of fragant spices, a marzipan factory, soda kiosk, a little Turkish borecas store and more. The
tour includes many opportunities for tasting” and “The Awakening of Florentin : A tour of one of Tel Aviv old
neighborhoods, which had been undergoing a revival in the last few years, where new immigrants live next
to veterans, students and artists, religious and secular. A genuine melting pot of Israeli society. The tour
includes a visit to the LEHI”.
85
Caroline ROZENHOLC
The neighborhood of Florentin as a
fertile ground of research13)
The neighborhood of Florentin is a vivid
working class neighborhood located in
the poor southern sector of the city of Tel
Aviv. Built in the 1920’s on both sides of
the border parting Tel Aviv from Jaffa, it
is one of the city historical
neighborhoods. In fact, the Northern part
of the neighborhood, built in 1921 on the
Tel Aviv side of the border and named
Merkaz Mishari, was the first commercial
area of the city. About one decade later,
Florentin, on the other side of the border
was built to welcome Jews from
Thessaloniki who would work in the port
of Jaffa. Nevertheless, until Merkaz
Mishari was decided and built, Tel Aviv
had been thought of like a residential
neighborhood, modern, clean and devoid
of any commercial activity. As such, the
construction of Merkaz Mishari
contributed to turn Tel Aviv into an
economic center and to establish the
neighborhood-city as an autonomous
entity in the Israeli state-building context
of Palestine. It can even be said that the
Fig. 3 - The neighborhood of Florentin has a
transformation of Tel Aviv from a
unique architecture among Tel Aviv with
residential neighborhood of Jaffa into a
buildings on the street, shops on the ground
city in the full sense of the term, and the
floors and dwellings on the second and third
rapid development of Tel Aviv from an
floors.
autonomous township (1921) into a
municipality by itself (1934)14), is rooted in
15)
the creation of the neighborhood of Florentin . For the Israeli historian Tom Segev (2001,
183), the autonomy of Tel Aviv in 1921 is the most important Zionist achievment since “since
Britain was given the Mandate. It was a cornerstone of Jewish autonomy in Palestine”.
Nevertheless, after the creation of the State of Israel and the conquest of Jaffa in 1948, the
neighborhood was “withdrawn” from the city map. From the 1950s it started half a century of
deprivation regarding municipal investments and social infrastructures. Florentin area was even
set for evacuation in 1954 by one of the city planners 16). By then, the neighborhood is
supposed to be strictly dedicated to an industrial activity and starts by then to be officially
perceived as inappropriate for living. This plan was never put in action, neither were
13) I borrow this idea of a fertile ground of research from Anne Raulin (2008: 67).
14) Until 1950 and the dissolution of the Municipality of Jaffa, both municipalities will function side
by side.
15) Today, the ancient city of Jaffa is included in the Municipality of Tel Aviv Jaffa and constitutes
one of its quarters.
16) A. B. Horwitz, “Master Plan for Tel Aviv–Yafo”, TAMA, Yediot Tel Aviv – Yafo, 22 (8-9), 1954,
pp. I-IV.
86
The Neighborhood of Florentin: a Window to the Globalization of Tel Aviv
renovations to compensate the degradation of the area. Still, it is important to note that this
plan and perspective echoes the terms used by the British Authorities at the end of the 1940s
to qualify the neighborhoods in between Tel Aviv and Jaffa17).
The combination of such factors and the gloomy reputation the neighborhood acquired over the
years quickly turned Florentin into a place where you wouldn’t want to live. Much of its
population had left by the mid-1990s. But, nonetheless, and after years of decay, a local
mobilization emerged and attracted the municipals attention to the poor situation of the
neighborhood and the urgent need for changes. Combined with the municipal understanding of
the potential of the neighborhood and its unique architecture – Florentin is the only place in Tel
Aviv to be planned with low buildings straight on the street and to combine commercial,
industrial, leisure and residential activities18) – it initiated a reverse movement. Money was
injected to publicize the place and to incite people to come back to the neighborhood. Between
1992 and 1995, more than four millions of dollars are spent in a communication and
revitalization campaign: publicity and rent subsidies, kindergarten renovation, street pavement
and street transformation for pedestrians, creation of a community centre (Bigger and Shavit,
2001)19). Those public investments both then initiated and carried on spontaneous (private)
transformations of businesses and dwellings. Between 1990 and 1995, six hundreds of
apartments previously used as stock space or businesses are turned back by their owners to
their residential use (Carmon, 1999). Sur la même période, les loyers et le prix d’achat des
appartements doublent (Erez, 1996). From 2 410 inhabitants in 1990, the population of
Florentin rose to 3 641 in 2000 and to 5 197 inhabitants in 200920).
This movement initiated a general – although at first very much localized around Florentin
Street – revitalization of the neighborhood, upped by the recognition of its unique atmosphere
of cultural vitality and mixed population, being Israeli nationals from different backgrounds or
migrant workers. Both in terms of activities and population, Florentin is, at the time and until
today, a mixed neighborhood for dwellings and businesses, with shops and workshops on
ground floors and dwellings in the upper ones. You find there carpentries and smiths and the
noise of sewing and stapling machines is a full feature of the sound-scape of Florentin. The
neighborhood of Florentin is the only place for such production in the city. All contributed from
the 1990s to redefine the position and the image of Florentin among Tel Aviv metropolis. Pop
songs from well-known artists such Ehud Banaï (with his song Florentin 1992) and Eytan Fox’s
“Florentin” TV series participated to a large extant to establish and diffuse on a national scale
the idea of this neighborhood as an alternative place for living, self-definitions and identity
construction a part of the Israeli youth. Florentin then started to appear as a bohemian,
generous, tolerant and tough neighborhood. Today’s real estate fever only confirms what can
be formulated today as a quest of exoticism, at home, within even the limits one of Israel big
city. The neighborhood thus slowly but surely transforms from a remote space within the city –
17) « I also wish to draw your attention to the deplorable fact of the growing number of slums in
these quarters when all efforts in England and elsewhere are directed towards the abolition of slums and
the introduction of modern systems of building which would reduce poverty in residential quarters » Notes
to the District Commissioner Mr. Fuller, 21st of July 1947, Tel Aviv Municipal Archives, shhunot klali –
dossier n°04-2209 B – 01-1944 – 03.1949.
18) Florentin was not planned according the Geddes plan and it was not either planned according
Tel Aviv policy which recommend to have
19) About 12 millions and a half of New Isreaeli shekels (12 571 700) are spent in five years. About
half of it is spent in the only year 1992 (6 043 900 NIS) (Erez 1996).
20) The total population of the city of Tel Aviv rose from 339 354 in 1990 to 354 428 in 2000. It is
now estimated to be about 392 500 (Municipality of Tel Aviv Jaffa Statistical Yearbooks). In the same time
period, the population of Florentin was multiplied by 2.15 (the population of Tel Aviv by 1.15).
87
Caroline ROZENHOLC
the “margin” within – into an “authentic” place in the constantly and fast changing “Bubble” Tel
Aviv.
Untangling geographical theory and sense of place through observation
If we now zoom out the field, I can say that the research conducted in Florentin started from a
desire to tackle two widespread ideas: 1) the disintegration of territory due to globalization and
2) the production and multiplication of non-places. In the context of globalized city, does
globalization really annihilates territory and sense of place? And is globalization a destructive
matter for space or place-related identities; knowing what a strong engine globalization is for
mobility, for the re-composition of references – either social or spatial – and for the
diversification of our surroundings? This relation between society and space is obviously not a
new topic. But it needs to be re-interrogated today as globalization keeps on blurring this wellknown – yet mysterious – equation which puts identity and place in balance. Especially if we
agree that globalization constantly reshuffles local and global scales. This is why and how I
investigated the neighborhood of Florentin; taking it as a place where to grasp the new layouts
induced by the globalization of the city; and as a space where to observe social transformations
at large. Here is the key to the title of this article: the neighborhood of Florentin is a window to
the globalization of both the city and the country. In fact, this neighborhood provides a
particularly rich arena for exploring the dynamics of place-making and of place transformation.
Plus, and this is somehow new, researching on Florentin, allows to be dedicated to the
complexity of today’s urban dynamics from an everyday life point of view and to transcend what
U. Beck (2005) calls the “methodological nationalism” prevalent both in the Israeli Social
Sciences and in the French research on Israel/Palestine.
Fig. 4 - Graffiti “Am Florentin haii” - “the people
of Florentin lives” Florentin 2008
It is one of my arguments that Florentin offers a great
arena for capturing the processes taking place
nowadays in the Israeli society through a detailed
observation and analysis of gentrification, migration,
urban activism and of the production of urban
identities. The picture reproduced above (Fig. 4)
summarizes most of what has been just said and it is
one example of a graffiti you can find on many walls Fig.5 - Double graffiti and play on
of Florentin. Working on globalization, no doubt it is a the words: “am Israel hai” – “am
detail but I suggest taking it as an informative one. It
israel haialim” - “the people of
reads “Am Florentin hai”: “the people of Florentin Israel is alive” – “Israel is a people
lives” and is written in green and decorated with a
of soldiers” – Florentin 2008.
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The Neighborhood of Florentin: a Window to the Globalization of Tel Aviv
smile. It can be analyzed as an illustration of how Florentin is identified as a neighborhood with
a specific – or defined – identity and how people identify with this neighborhood, to the point of
calling themselves “the people of Florentin”. This meaning is particularly strong as the “people
of Florentin” actually echoes another graffiti spread, this time, all over Tel Aviv (Fig. 5).
This second graffiti states “am Israel hai”: “the people of Israel live”. The smile and probable
humor of “the people of Florentin lives” is here replaced by a Star of David painted in blue. Both
the blue color and the Star of David, in this context, immediately give the graffiti a nationalist
tone21). In this game of echoes with the walls of the city as go-betweens, another statement can
be read on the same figure 5. Letters have been added at the end of the graffiti to change –
and maybe invert – its meaning from the “people of Israel live” to “Israel is a people of soldiers”.
Through these two images (Fig. 4 and Fig. 5), we already reach many layers of meaning;
relating to different ways of identification to space, place and territory, including national issues
and a reference to war. And although it needs to be more detailed and pursued the simple use
of these two images also indicate new paths for practicing geography. They also raise the
question of the elements and angles through which we analyze the relations from society and
people to space and place. This remarks leads here to a central point and to the choice of the
South of Tel Aviv for an exploration of main and global geographical issues. If in the IsraeliPalestinian context Tel Aviv is regarded as the global city, the neighborhoods of the south of
the city have mainly remained aside from this global narrative and from the recognition of Tel
Aviv as a central place and as the high-tech economy and development lung of the country. But
Florentin, like other marginal places “speak” about the center and tells us much about what is
going on today in Tel Aviv.
Identification, history and expanded diversity in Israel
One striking example of this, once we understand why Florentin, despite of being one of Tel
Aviv historical neighborhoods, remained “out of the map”, is the presence of migrant workers;
living, working and buying in the streets of Florentin. Southern neighborhoods of Tel Aviv like
Florentin – although the imprint of migrant workers is stronger in adjacent neighborhoods such
as Shapira or Neve Sheanan and both neighborhoods are strongly identified with the presence
of migrant workers – are where the migrant workers from Asia, Europe and Africa settled since
10 to 20 years22). The “new” central bus station of Tel Aviv, East of Florentin, aggregates those
“new faces” of Israel and they have constituted, I must say, what drew my attention to this part
of the city. For different reasons that can’t be detailed here, their presence is an opportunity to
get into globalization not only through reading the high rises we now see all over Tel Aviv, but
also through the globalization of the city population. The migrant workers are estimated to
constitute today between 10 to 13% of the country’s labor force and started to arrive mostly
after the Israeli borders started to close to the Palestinian workers which since 1967 constituted
a massive and cheap labor force for Israel. By settling mostly in Tel Aviv, and in Tel Aviv mostly
in the southern neighborhoods of Tel Aviv, they reinitiate Florentin as a landing - starting place
in the country. They inscribe themselves somehow in an immigration history, a history of
mobility, many traces of can be found in Florentin, through street names, shop signs such as
Thessaloniki bakeries, Persian restaurants and more recently through Indian-like places where
young Israelis coming back from India like to gather and maintain the feeling of traveling and
being abroad.
21) In 1983, the Israeli singer Ofra Haza competed at the Eurovision with the song “Am Israel Hai”.
The nationalist understatement of the song was reinforced by the fact that the contest took place in Munich,
some years after the Munich Olympic Games. It was criticized for bringing politics into a recreational event.
22) See Table 2 for Central Bureau of Statistics computed data from 1996 to 2008 on the number
of entries in Israel with a work visa by continent and country of origin.
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Caroline ROZENHOLC
Table 1
The population of Tel Aviv and the repartition of the population of Florentin by age
groups from 1986 to 2009
YEAR
1986
Population
of Tel Aviv
320 258
1987
Population of
Florentin
3 105
Florentin’s population by age group
(% of the total population of the neighborhood)
0-14
15-24
25-44
45-64
+ 65
*
2 862
1988
317 806
2 760
1989
321 715
2 565
1990
1991
339 354
353 242
2 410
2 562
21.8
23.7
5.1
5.1
28.8
29.4
20.1
20.2
24
22
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
356 911
357 367
355 197
348 245
349 217
348 570
348 117
350 753
354 428
358 800
360 400
3 188
3 311
3 309
3 092
4 700**
3 710
3 695
3 582
3 641
3 866
3 943
25.3
23.8
22.2
20.8
19.5
13.4
12.7
11.9
10.6
9.8
9.2
6.3
8.7
9.6
10.7
11.7
14.7
14.9
14.1
14
14.3
13.7
32.3
33.2
33.9
34
35.5
39.1
41.2
44.7
46.7
47.7
49.8
18.8
18.7
19.2
20.1
18.9
18
17.2
16.9
17.3
17.8
17.8
17
16
15
14
14
15
14
22
11
10
9.5
2003
363 387
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
371 400
378 902
384 399
390 068
392 500
3 913
3 972
4 205
4 502
4 878
8.9
8.5
7.7
7.4
6.6
12.5
11.1
10.5
9.7
9.7
51.5
54.3
57.2
59.1
61
18.1
17.5
17
9.7
17
9
8.6
7.6
6.9
5.7
5 197
6.6
9.2
62.8
16.8
4.6
2009
* Empty boxes correspond to missing data.
** This figure is an estimation.
Source: Municipality of Tel Aviv Jaffa, Statistical Yearbook (1986-2010), computed data.
Exploring sense of place and identity and territorial constructions in the global city of Tel-Aviv
today raises the presence and of the foreign workers and the political steps the Israeli
government took towards this “question”. Here, one aspect that highly connects the foreign
workers community, although “foreign”, to the double issue of identity and territory is
citizenship. Even though, the question of citizenship, as being a link between identity and
territory, reminds us on a daily basis how sensitive it is in the Israeli-Palestinian context.
Consequently, it is crucial to emphasize the major change the presence of foreign workers and
their children born in Israel have brought in this legal area. Here again, it shows how
immigration – even if important, by definition marginal – can shed light and enlarge the
understanding of political and social issues of the host society itself; here Israel. Saying so, it
is important to add that the changes, although major in their terms and potential, are very
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The Neighborhood of Florentin: a Window to the Globalization of Tel Aviv
modest in “quantity” and concern only a small thousand of persons. In the summer 2005, the
Knesset adopted a law – to be more precise: a one-time regulation – to grant under certain
conditions residential status to some foreign workers’ children.
Table 2
Number of entries in Israel with a work visa
Absolute numbers and percentages of the total by continent and
country of origin (1986-2008)
Year
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
Total (absolute numbers)
90800
64200
52200
33200
47900
32700
30300
Asia (% of the total)
40.52
45.32
44.06
68.97
78.49
74.61
70.62
400
700
700
500
1000
1100
2700
Turkey
9000
2900
1800
600
1400
1100
900
Lebanon
5200
5400
900
2800
2300
Country of origin
India
Nepal
China
3600
3000
2900
1800
2800
3300
2300
Philippines
3200
6700
7600
7400
6500
6400
5500
14900
9000
8000
12100
10400
9000
5800
Other Asian countries
500
1400
1000
500
1300
700
2000
Africa (% of the total)
0.44
1.55
1.14
0.90
0.20
0.30
0.66
Europe (% of the total)
54.84
47.81
52.87
28.31
20.25
24.46
26.73
Bulgaria
3300
2400
2300
1100
800
400
200
ex-USSR
4400
3400
4300
2100
3000
4300
5800
Germany
500
800
400
200
100
100
100
Great-Britain
400
900
600
300
200
100
100
37900
19300
16600
4500
4800
2600
1400
Other European countries
3300
3900
2400
1200
800
500
500
America – Oceania (% of the total)
1.54
4.67
3.25
1.80
0.83
0.61
1.98
Thailand
Romania
Source: CBS, Statistical Abstract of Israel (1996-2008) – computed data.
Criteria were quite restrictive and only few hundreds of children fulfilled them. To be eligible,
children had to be born in Israel, from parents who entered the country legally, even if they
overstayed tourist visa. They also had to be 6 years old and above at the time of the regulation
(July 2005). First meant for children from age 10 and above, the regulation was enlarge to
children from age 6 under the pressure of different lobbies and NGOs. To obtain their permit
children also had to speak Hebrew; which in fact most children in schooling age do as they
usually attend public schools. Israel has signed the international treaties which require equal
education for all children regardless of their parents’ status and public schools accept children
regardless to their parents’ status. Taking all the conditions in account, 600 among 2 200
children in Tel-Aviv and probably 3 200 in the whole country fitted in. The brothers and sisters
of those children – about 300 hundreds– also got their presence in Israel legalized. All together,
91
Caroline ROZENHOLC
it is about 900 children who obtained a “resident status” and will at age 21, after compliance to
the military duty, have the possibility to be granted with Israeli citizenship 23).Their parents also
saw their situation changed and obtained, for the ones remaining in Israel, an “A5” permit to be
renewed every year and giving them all civil rights, except voting ones.
In fact, in this frame, a very precise example shows how much the question of foreign
immigration is linked to the specificity of the Israeli/Palestinian context. Some children obtained
the legalization of their status after their father was deported. As such, those fathers would be
entitled to get a title of residence themselves. But fearing that Palestinian families that were
separated after the 1967 war will take advantage on this to reunite, a condition was added.
Today, those deported fathers will only be allowed to come to Israel after their children are
already one year in the army. As Arab Israelis are not subjected to the compulsive army
service, this is a very contextual innovation. Regardless to all those restrictions, in a country
where citizenship is gained through ethnic affiliation, this downswing from jus sanguinis to jus
soliis is a real change24). This one time regulation which gives status to a new community within
the society will give the country a new type of “nationals” at the time the foreign workers’
children will become full citizens25). This very fact should be emphasized as proving efficiency
of the migrants’ participatory practices and their successful negotiated membership in Israel.
The foreign workers have – as Adriana Kemp puts it – enlarged the whole Israeli public sphere
through a global discourse on human rights (Kemp and al., 2000: 94, 98). Nevertheless, this
success needs to be balanced by the government reactions – even or also they are various
and changing – which shows a clear resistance to incorporate new members, non-Jewish
immigrants, into the Israeli society. And there stands probably what geographers like William
Berthomière (2005) call “the limits of an Israeli cosmopolitanism”.
Conclusions
Researching in Florentin and studying this marginal and trendy neighborhood pulls us into the
heart of the development of Tel Aviv as a political project one century ago. The border
“contained” in Florentin crystallized in the organization of the city, regarding capital and
population. As it travelled in time and maintains itself, it forces us to remember that Tel Aviv
started as a neighborhood of Jaffa before becoming a municipal entity and turning Jaffa into
one of its neighborhoods. Therefore, diving in the present of Florentin with in-depths interviews
with residents, workers and decision makers only made sense by being combined with archives
research and intensive and long term observation in the streets of the neighborhood. And as
we move along the past present and future of the city and jump over scales, we produce a
geography soaked in its surroundings, from which to go beyond the case-study. Thereafter,
Florentin gives us to read a whole range of new identities regarding state and religion, but also
regarding ways of positioning and linking ourselves to the world through the place we live in.
Tel Aviv and more over the South of the city is therefore an excellent place where to decipher
the local/global articulation and to understand the local impact and expression of global trends.
Moreover, South Tel Aviv – being the poorest part of the city – is not where we would
spontaneously look for globalization and movements of capital. Still, the analyses it allows
show that we can globalization can also be read through the mundane and the details of a
23) At age 21, the grown up children will have the choice between Israeli citizenship or returning to
their “country of origin”.
24) It is true though that “ethnic belonging” was already not the only way to obtain citizenship in
Israel as Palestinians who prove an interrupted residence in Israel between May 1948 and the enactment
of the Law on citizenship in 1952 are also entitled to it (Dieckhoff 1999).
25) Israeli citizens are divided between Jewish, Arab, Druze, Circassian nationals. Until recently
the each person’s nationality was mentioned on the identity card.
92
The Neighborhood of Florentin: a Window to the Globalization of Tel Aviv
marginal place.
At a more theoretical level, in-depth work
on Florentin also show how much place
still makes sense today; especially in
places where the references and layers of
time and space are diverse and
accumulate rather than replace each other.
In global cities, spaces open to a
multiplicity of experiences and behaviors
still produce strong sense of identity and
identification. In Florentin, this situation is
both the result of globalization as
diversification and of its proper history
being since its construction a place inbetween. It also shows that the
globalization of our city intensify the need
of identification and identification to what is
seen as authentic, even in place like
Florentin which are now changing and
transformed by new populations settling in.
As a final conclusion, it is necessary to
point out that with the impact of
globalization
it is the whole story of Tel
Fig.6 - Sticker “Rebranding Israel. A modern
Aviv
that
takes
a different color once
image for a modern state”, Florentin 2008. A
call for putting together a new image for Israel addressed through its southern
neighborhoods. Doing so, the Bubble is
from the streets of Florentin.
grounded and sits in its political and
geopolitical history and present. Therefore, the multi-analysis of the neighborhood induces the
observer to take Florentin as a prism through which to observe the place, the city and the rapid
transformations and inertias of the Israeli society itself. This example shows how this kind of
multi-strata places is becoming a diffused “model” of place of meaning, where sense of place is
reenacted through the multiplication of references and uses. Saying so, I want to point out that
the choice of Tel Aviv and the multi-focal analysis of one of its “marginal” neighborhoods allow
two shifts. First, it locates the reflection afar from the most mediated places of tension in a
region still at war. Second, it sheds light on the mundane and the sense of place in our
contemporary era of globalization from where it is less obviously traceable. This work can be
sum up in three shifts: to reflect on globalization through a city that is not commonly thought of
as a global city; to reflect on the evolution of a society in conflict through places that are not
usually address; and last to reflect on a city and on its history through a neighborhood that was
not retained as a historical neighborhood.
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Received at : 02.11.2010
Revised at: 06.12.2010
Accepted for publication at: 20.12.2010
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